Another company moves to Mexico from a small city here in OK

[karlschneider]

was a significant employer in Muskogee for 30 years

http://www.ktul.com/news/stories/1003/104830.html

(Muskogee is down the road 15 miles from here, I lived there for 10 years flying for a company which also went out of biz in 98, population about 25,000)

[mhr]

1. Hi Karl

Do you still fly for a living?

If so, has the demand for pilots improved a bit or is that job market still depressed as well?

[karlschneider]

2. I still do, for charters mostly. The market for pilots isn't great but it

isn't all that bad appaarently...I worked as a corporate pilot for 35 years, I'm semi-retired. The problem is that the pay sucks. We carry the CEO of a company in a plane that costs $10 million bucks and get paid a pittance
(and are expected to cater to their whims up to and including finding them women to screw. I am not exaggerating.) The company I flew for had a rule that the CEO and the Exec VP weren't allowed to fly commercially together (an understandable precaution), but they would both ride with me. I took that as an implicit trust in my abilities - they have both since died, but not in my (their) airplane. ;-)

And there are the times when they just HAVE to get to point X (it's only half an inch on their map), and they don't appreciate the fact that there are severe thunderstorms in the way. And there are the calls at midnight "run over to Roanoke (2 or 3 hours each way from here) and pick up Jack, he needs to be at work romorrow"...

I'm not sure if I would do it again, nor do I regret it. The job can be satisfying and exasperating at the same time. I've carried Senators and janitors around the country...seen every state in the USA and a bunch of other nations too. That I appreciate. It's a job. Sometimes it's exciting but mostly it's boring. I wish I had the writing skills of one of my old heroes, Ernest Gann, I'd write a book.
;-)

Oh, "Fate is the Hunter", by Gann is a wonderful read if you didn't know.